Tag: soundcloud

For this course so far, I’ve been focusing on clean energy. That is because promoting energy-saving is one aspect of outreach which is my topic for this course. I wanted to pivot the focus for this project on the actual topic of outreach. I’ve been employed in this type of work for over four years now and wanted to draw attention to the great efforts education outreach brings to an organization.

I definitely wanted to interview my colleagues here at the State of Hawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs. There’s a few other education specialists for their respective division (as I am for the Division of Consumer Advocacy). So, I decided on creating an explanatory story segment discussing outreach – the good, the bad, the future. With that, I drew inspiration from audio shows like Radiolab to create my audio story.

The original interview of my colleague in the Insurance Division, Chanel Honda, was about seven minutes long. I used my iPhone voice memo app to do the recording which was great since it’s lightweight, I held and moved it between the both of us easily.

I gave Chanel the interview questions ahead of time so she could prepare her answers and we did the interview in one take so I wouldn’t take up so much of her time. I think it also prevented a lot of “mistakes” in her answers since she already knew what she was going to say. There were a few “ums” that I had to edit out but at least it was kept to a minimum.

I brought the recording file into Adobe Audition and started breaking up the interview into question and answer blocks using the razor tool. I knew I wanted to take myself out of the interview because I’ll be narrating in between Chanel’s answers.

I recorded my narration portion of the story, again with my iPhone. I did multiple takes of each line so I wouldn’t have to re-record and upload to Audition repeatedly. After choosing the best take to bring in to the multitrack, I wanted to make sure the flow between my narration and the interview was not “choppy.”

I may have held the iPhone mic too close to her as I had to bring down the sound levels in Audition. Then had the task of matching my recording to the sound levels as hers. I made sure to adjust the volume before cutting up the clip with the razor tool otherwise I’d have to adjust each new individual clip after splicing (which can be a pain).

After some feedback from my peers (including editing the “ums”), I had to re-record the beginning and end of my narration. I changed my introduction of Chanel that I had mentioned at the end, thus, having a new ending to the story. I also needed to define “DCCA” which was an oversight on my part in my draft story. That made for a longer introduction narration for me. Luckily, with the clean-up edits to Chanel’s interview, it didn’t add to the timeline length.

I went researching for some sounds to use in the background just like you would here on NPR, This American Life or Radiolab. I landed on a piano recording I found on ccmixter. I only added it in during my narration so the focus is solely on the content of the interviewee.

I also had another suggestion that the music was a little too loud and distracting from listening to my narration. I lowered the sound levels even lower for the music on each of the four times the music comes on so that it’s at an “elevator music” level… hopefully. With the edits to the narration and cuts to Chanel’s interview, I had to be sure the narration sounds on the second track corresponded correctly with where I wanted it as the interview track shifted.

I think the final story is much cleaner than the draft and am very happy with the end result. Thanks to my peers for making great suggestions.

For this course so far, I’ve been focusing on clean energy. That is because promoting energy-saving is one aspect of outreach which is my topic for this course. I wanted to pivot the focus for this project on the actual topic of outreach. I’ve been employed in this type of work for over four years now and wanted to draw attention to the great efforts education outreach brings to an organization.

I definitely wanted to interview my colleagues here at the State of Hawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs. There’s a few other education specialists for their respective division (as I am for the Division of Consumer Advocacy). So, I decided on creating an explanatory story segment by way of an edited interview, discussing outreach – the good, the bad, the future.

I listened to a couple of audio shows on Radiolab that drew inspiration on how to go about editing the audio interview. The tough part was actually cutting it down to 1-3 minutes. Most of these podcasts are about 20 minutes. Creating something with a beginning, middle, and end under three minutes was pretty difficult especially when I felt I got some great audio content with my interview I wanted to share but had to cut.

The original interview was about seven minutes long. It’s of my colleague in the Insurance Division, Chanel Honda. That is whom you hear in my draft audio story. As mentioned before, it was a challenge to cut it down without having it sound cut off. I used my iPhone voice memo app to do the recording which was great since it’s lightweight, I could carry and move it between the both of us easily.

I brought the recording file into Adobe Audition and started breaking up the interview into question and answer blocks using the razor tool. I knew I wanted to take myself out of the interview because I’ll be narrating in between Chanel’s answers. Even with cutting down to just her answers, the edit was pretty long. I ended up cutting out an extra question I ad-libbed during the interview.

Next, I had to record myself for the narration portion of the story. Again, I used my iPhone for the recording. I did about 4 takes of each line so I wouldn’t have to re-record and upload to Audition repeatedly. After choosing the best take to bring in to the multitrack, I wanted to make sure the flow between my narration and the interview was not “choppy.”

I went researching for some sounds to use in the background just like you would here on NPR, This American Life or Radiolab. While I’m not savvy enough like those podcasts to add in many sound effects, I attempted to with one piano recording I found on ccmixter. I only added it in during my narration so the focus is solely on the content of the interviewee.

I’m open to adding in more background or foley sounds but I’m not sure how to mix them in that would match the content. In any case, I hope the story segment was engaging enough for any listener.